Tesla Model 3 Becomes Best Selling Electric Car In World (cleantechnica.com)

Jose Pontes of EV Volumes and CleanTechnica has crunched some numbers and found that the Tesla Model 3 is now the best selling plug-in vehicle in the world. "In fact, the Model 3 was approximately 55,000 sales above the #2 BAIC EC-Series, an extremely popular Chinese model," CleanTechnica reports. "The Model 3 gobbled 7% of the plug-in vehicle market, while the #2 EC-Series and #3 Nissan LEAF each had 4%." From the report: After those top three, as the chart shows, the Tesla Model S and Model X were #4 and #5, respectively. They were followed by three Chinese models and then the Toyota Prius Prime and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. The Model 3 (and others) helped push the world plug-in vehicle share up to 2.1% in 2018. (Double that 4 times and we're at about 30% market share.) [...] Remember, 93% of plug-in vehicle sales in 2018 were not Model 3 sales. Nearly 2 million non -- Model 3 electric cars, SUVs, and crossovers made it into consumers' parking spots. Still, there's clearly a new king of the hill, and its young Tesla's 4th model.

Comments

Re:I'll wait on the Chinese

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Very sensible attitude. You will not be disappointed when you get an electric car at the price you are comfortable with, be it Tesla or not.

Among the early adopters a vast majority are also the same sensible people, knowingly and willingly paying way over their normal price range for the model 3. The most common models traded in for the model 3 were Camrys, priuses and accords. My own comfort price range is 25K, and I paid 55K way beyond my comfort zone. I had heard numerous owners say the same thing.

As the prices fall, you might be tempted to stretch your price range too, it has that kind of effect, once you test drive one.

The secret master plan seems to be working

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The Secret Master Plan was published in 2006, 13 years ago.

The entire Tesla enterprise is a bet on a curve. The battery price will halve and the energy density will double every seven years. Sort of a Moore's Law for the batteries. The play book of Tesla is to find which segment of the car/suv market can be attacked at what price batteries. Roadster in 2008. S in 2012. X in 2015. 3 in 2018.

The auto industry is very mature. Almost all its parts have been refined and optimized over and over for a long time. The prices of components, crankshafts, body panels, differential gears, do not change significantly between the conception, design and production. They conditioned to think like this. "Today battery price is 200 $/kWh. The gasoline power train cost X$. Replacing it with electric would give me Y kWh battery, so... " They are not used to, "battery price to day is 190 $/kWh, four years from now it will 140$/kWh, ...". This is the mistake they made in underestimating Tesla.

Also the temperament of Elon helped. He kept making impossible to believe claims. So they discounted everything he said. Had he been a staid stiff upper lip CEO, they might have taken him more seriously and started competing with him earlier. 11 years after the Roadster, still there is no electric roadster from any competition with comparable spec. 50 kWh battery, 240 mile range, peppy two seater.

While the media circus he created kept focusing on his "failures". What he delivered in his "failures" were still stunning ground breaking trail blazing machines.

The battery era is dawning. It is getting cheaper to store 1 GWh of electricity than to build an gas burning powerplant, in the usa! In deep mines, not having to suck out the diesel exhaust pays for the conversion to battery powered earth movers!

At the price of 90 $/kWh BEV and ICEV will cost the same off the dealership, for a 300 mile range car. At that price indeterminacy of solar and wind would not be an issue. We are in for a great battery powered future.